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My Love/Hate Relationship with my Cleaners…..

Best advice my mother ever gave me (and she’s given me some corkers in her time) was “Every young mother needs a cleaner, you have enough on your plate as it is so even if you simply have to work to pay for the cleaner, do yourself a favour and have someone come and help with the cleaning once a week”

BEST ADVICE EVER.

There are no fights about who does more cleaning in this house or who is responsible for bathrooms/floors etc and the only rule is that everyone has to tidy up their own bedrooms prior to the cleaners arriving and I only go psycho for a couple of hours each Monday night.

Every Tuesday morning I run around my house like a woman possessed, my thyroid goes into overdrive and I sweat like a crazy person trying to tidy up for the cleaners. For those of you who enjoy pulling out that same old, “what’s the point in having cleaners if you have to clean before they come,” there is method to the madness. You don’t vacuum a floor with toys all over it. You pick up the crap prior to vacuuming. That’s what the tidy up is about. Moving crap so you can get your money’s worth because let’s face it, cleaners don’t actually know where your crap goes. I even go so far as to put the chairs on the table so that every last Weet Bix crumb is vacuumed up.

I have a l love/hate relationship with my cleaners.

I don’t speak Korean and their English is limited. Our conversations would make for a good Seinfeld episode.

Hannah (the cleaner) – “Oh Miss Lala, we no have time for so much clean, your house very big so we change price for more dollars so we finish job”

Me: “Sorry Hannah, I no understand your English, I have to go to work, bye bye”

Me: “Hannah I noticed you completely missed one of the bathrooms last week, can you please ensure you at least clean the shower and toilet in there”

Hannah: “Yes Miss Lala, maybe we only do all bathroom each week but sometime we miss one for time because you give us more money yes?”

WTF?

Gotta love the Asian culture, you screw them on money, they screw you on quality control. Oh the stories I could tell about that….will post about that one later!

Our conversations ping pong around them trying to ask me for more money and me pretending I don’t understand and then I try to tell them they missed the shelf covered in soap in a bathroom and they pretending they have no idea what I’m saying.

My cleaners are also baby kissers. They love children. Too much. It’s weird. My kids run a mile when they see them here and beg and plead for me to cancel their appearance fee during school holidays. Kids get a vibe from people and my cleaners 100% invade their personal space. It comes from kindness I’m sure but the Koreans need to learn a little about HOW MY CHILDREN DON”T WANT YOU TO KISS, HUG OR TOUCH THEM.

Hannah’s just come in and told me in broken English “Oh Miss Lala, you need stop children watching Walt Disney movies. Very very bad for children. I will email you. You watch. You will destroy all movies from Walk Disney YES?

Um, No.

Hannah also has a very delightful way of completely offending the crap out of me without knowing it. “Oh Miss Lala, your house so much more messy than Miss Alison. Her house very very tidy all the time. But you have 5 children to maybe messy is ok”

No, not ok. I thought it was very tidy today. Miss Alison is my friend, I’m taking my kids to her house to mess it up tomorrow. Damn her and her tidy house!

Her insults haven’t stopped at the house, there’s usually a personal one thrown in for good measure:

“Oh, you cut your hair. It look so much better the other way. This way I think you look fat”

Thanks. Mole.

Meantime they do actually clean the bat poo off the windows (how the feck does a bat fly into a window and then shit on it?). They vacuum the sofas and under the cushions and they find missing keys/phones and other things that toddlers have decided to play hide and seek with.